


Hopeless

by onceuponasnowbarry



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Heterosexual, Love, Riverdale, barchie, bestfriend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 09:35:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9998993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onceuponasnowbarry/pseuds/onceuponasnowbarry
Summary: Betty Cooper is hopelessly in love with Archie Andrews, and she'll do anything to protect him, including looking into the new music teacher who seems to have captured his heart.Even if it means breaking her own.1x04 Canon. (In which Betty puts herself second, and him first. She really is hopeless.)





	

**Hopeless**  
/ˈhəʊplɪs/  
_adjective  
_ incapable of redemption or improvement; giving no ground for hope

⥂♫⥃

 **"LOOK, I GET THAT IT'S WRONG**. I _do_. But she means a lot to me. She believed in me when no one else did." 

Betty tried not to let her face crumple as his words rang in her ears. 

_**She** believed in me._

_**No one** else did._

Betty glanced down at her hands to find them hanging limp on her plum corduroy jeans (her mother wouldn't let her wear black, too harsh for Betty's soft features), tears blurring her vision until they were nothing but a swirl of pale skin fading into purple. 

And even underneath all the pain she felt, she was still worried for _him_. Worried someone might have overheard him talking about the new music teacher at Riverdale High because _yes_ , it was abnormal thing to talk about your teacher believing in you so passionately and _yes,_ Archie was in a secret relationship with her.

_Yes. A secret relationship._

With the new music teacher.

Betty liked to act like it didn't break her heart (and mess with her mind, because, really, what did he see in her?) to watch her best friend infatuated with an older woman who was practically committing an act of pedophilia, but she could only do so much. She was already putting her feelings second, and him first. It wasn't his fault Betty was in love with him, and watching him fall for something else was all but a stab wound to her fragile heart. But she was strong, and she'd take a blade for him anytime, anywhere. He had so much to live for, and she didn't want to see him throw away his life of football and music for someone whose intentions were more than suspicious. But what could she even do that would make any difference, exactly?  Sure, she could share her thoughts of disapproval (which would only be scratching the surface, really), but she was sure if she went any further than that, if she fully unleashed herself and pushed all the way until she broke him down, she would find her heart obliterated into nothingness when Archie chose Mrs.Grundy over her.

She understood the concept of love clouded judgement, but she was not willing to test how far. Not willing to put years of their friendship at risk. They were dependent on each other; possibly more so her than him, but it was still big for each of them either way. And she wasn't going to be irrational and let her feelings take over just to throw it all away. 

So here she sat, walking on eggshells with her _best friend who she was trying to be there for_ , yet he said stuff like _this_ and managed to smash any hope into fragments that would take a while to be put back together.

She lifted her head, unblinking, gazing at the face she had come to love so much. Dark auburn hair cut to cast his face into the spotlight of the world, he couldn't have blended in if he tried. Dark, warm eyes on a landscape that had grown from the pudgy one she used to find a safe haven in to sharp cheekbones and bowed lips, the one that appeared in her dreams for more often than she would have liked. The skin around his neck and jaw strung tight, the face that would most likely lead to her undoing. What was that saying her mother had always told her after Polly, the perfect older sister and daughter, was sent to a group home after Jason had broken up with her? _Love is like heaven, but burns like hell_? Well, she had to agree, because she was definitely feeling it now. There was an inferno ablaze in her chest, the heat cackling and boiling and brewing and she couldn't _breathe_. The pain only increased when he explained the situation. Dust and ash were the only thing being left behind as his words took her by storm, and she knew she was pushing it. Pushing her emotional limits trying to help him.

But because she was Betty Cooper, good girl next door, best friend to Archie Andrews, she was going to put him first. 

She couldn't give up now, after all they'd done together. All the memories of school years flitted through her head, the summer's, the dinners at Pop's Diner which had always had her walking home with a smile on her face, the way they would drink milkshakes (hers vanilla, his chocolate) for hours. He'd been her source of happiness and he hadn't even known it. And when her parents sent Polly away without allowing her a goodbye, when she thought life truly wasn't for her anymore, he'd sit right by the window parallel to hers and they'd talk on the phone until dawn, watching each other laugh and cry through the thin glass and sharing things that could only be shared by the best of friends.

And now she was going to repay him the favor.

After all, his life was on the line. Hers wasn't (to an extent).

She didn't care what she had to do, but she would look into and find the real story about the music teacher. Mrs.Grundy being the previous tutor to the recently murdered Jason Blossom was surely something that was not a coincidence, and Betty was going to make sure that this relationship of theirs wasn't something that could ruin Archie. And if Betty's friendship with Archie was on the line, well, she would have to hide it until she found sufficient evidence. As memories of him comforting her about Polly hit her like a road block, she knew he deserved that much.

"Betty," Archie spoke, in the velvet voice she had come to know so well, snapping her out of her daze. She lifted her eyes hesitantly. "Say something. Please."

So she stared into his gaze, shaking her head absentmindedly, scrubbing away her doubt. She was going to do this, but she had to make a cover story or she would lose Archie. Lucky for her, this was the moment her mother pulled up and demanded her to get in and go home.

She got in without a word, casting one lingering look as his figure got smaller and smaller in the distance, the memories of their friendship keeping her determined to uncover the truth.

⥂♫⥃

**Author's Note:**

> I LOVE BETTY (#bettydeservesbetter #veronicaisslightlyoverratedsorryshe'sstillcoolthoughjustoverrated ), and I am officially #barchie trash!!! the scene in ep1 after prom made me cry like a child, and ep2 where he told the story of little him asking little betty to marry him was fricken adorable!! and in ep4 when betty told her mother she would never stop being friends with archie? ugh!! endgame.


End file.
